Ohio girl's text: Players took advantage of me

From left, Defense attorney Adam Nemann, his client, defendant Trent Mays, 17, defendant 16-year-old Ma’lik Richmond and his attorney, Walter Madison, listen to testimony during Mays and Richmond’s trial on rape charges in juvenile court on Thursday, March 14, 2013 in Steubenville, Ohio. Mays and Richmond are accused of raping a 16-year-old West Virginia girl in August of 2012. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, Pool)

From left, Defense attorney Adam Nemann, his client, defendant Trent Mays, 17, defendant 16-year-old Ma’lik Richmond and his attorney, Walter Madison, listen to testimony during Mays and Richmond’s trial on rape charges in juvenile court on Thursday, March 14, 2013 in Steubenville, Ohio. Mays and Richmond are accused of raping a 16-year-old West Virginia girl in August of 2012. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, Pool)

Trent Mays, 17, left, and co-defendant 16-year-old Ma’lik Richmond sit at the defense table during a recess of their trial on rape charges in juvenile court on Thursday, March 14, 2013, in Steubenville, Ohio. Mays and Richmond are accused of raping a 16-year-old West Virginia girl in August of 2012. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, Pool)

Prosecuting attorney Marianne Hemmeter, left, looks at evidence during the rape trial for 17-year-old Trent Mays and 16-year-old Ma’lik Richmond in juvenile court on Thursday, March 14, 2013 in Steubenville, Ohio. Mays and Richmond are accused of raping a 16-year-old West Virginia girl in August of 2012. Presiding Judge Thomas Lipps is visible at right. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, Pool)

Trent Mays, 17, enters court for the second day of his and co-defendent 16-year-old Ma’lik Richmond trial on rape charges in juvenile court on Thursday, March 14, 2013 in Steubenville, Ohio. Mays and Richmond are accused of raping a 16-year-old West Virginia girl in August of 2012. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, Pool)

Ma’lik Richmond, 16, enters court for the second day of his and co-defendent 17-year-old Trent Mays trial on rape charges in juvenile court on Thursday, March 14, 2013 in Steubenville, Ohio. Mays and Richmond are accused of raping a 16-year-old West Virginia girl in August of 2012. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, Pool)

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STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (AP) â€” Text messages introduced Thursday in the rape trial of two high school football players provided differing accounts of what happened between them and a 16-year-old girl: One from a defendant described mutual sex, while another from the girl said she remembered leaving a party with the players but nothing after that.

The flurry of text messages sent around the eastern Ohio city of Steubenville after the alleged rape last year were presented as evidence on the second day of the trial before Special Judge Thomas Lipps, who is hearing the case without a jury.

“Swear to God I don’t remember doing anything with them,” the girl wrote to a friend, a boy who authorities say saw the assaults. “I wasn’t being a slut. They were taking advantage of me.”

Ma’Lik Richmond, 16, and Trent Mays, 17, are charged with digitally penetrating the West Virginia girl, first in the back seat of a moving car after a party Aug. 11 and then in the basement of a house. Mays also is charged with illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material. The two maintain their innocence.

Prosecutors insist the girl was too drunk to consent to sex, while defense attorneys have portrayed her as someone who was intoxicated but still in control of her actions.

Witnesses have said the girl was so drunk she threw up and had trouble walking and speaking.

In one text after the alleged assault, the girl told a boy who prosecutors say watched the attack, “Wait, I think I was drugged. I know I have no memory from after I left” the party.

The case has riveted the small city of Steubenville amid allegations that more students should have been charged and has led to questions about the influence of the local football team, a source of a pride in a community that suffered massive job losses with the collapse of the steel industry.

The texts introduced Thursday in juvenile court included admissions by Mays that he digitally penetrated the girl. In other messages, he told friends he’d participated in a different, mutual sex act with the girl.

He also sent messages to his friends to try to get them to gloss over what happened that night. In a text to a boy who lives in the house where the second attack is said to have happened, Mays wrote: “Just say she came to your house and passed out.”

In another message that prosecutors said Mays sent to the girl’s father, he said, “this is all a big misunderstanding.”

Prosecutors also presented texts sent by Mays to friends in which he suggested Steubenville football coach Reno Saccoccia would let the players involved off lightly.

The coach “took care of it,” Mays said in one text introduced by prosecutors.

“Like he was joking about it so I’m not worried,” Mays said in another text.

Saccoccia has not commented about the allegations, and Steubenville school officials have refused to make him available. Phone and email messages were left after hours for Superintendent Michael McVey. The district has promised to boost education programs about bullying, date rape and sexual harassment and add training for faculty and staff members.

Additional testimony Thursday came from a former Steubenville high school student, Sean McGhee, who said he considered the girl his friend and said she was extremely drunk the night of the party. McGhee, who goes to Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky., said he was upset after hearing about the alleged assault and texted Mays.

Walter Madison, an attorney for Richmond, challenged McGhee’s account, saying he may have exaggerated in his mind the girl’s intoxication because of his anger over the allegations.

Authorities said they collected 17 cellphones in their investigation. The evidence they yielded is considered crucial to prosecutors’ case against the boys because of photos taken that evening.

Three teenage boys who are key to the prosecution’s case are expected to take the stand Friday. Defense attorneys could call the girl to testify since a West Virginia judge ruled Tuesday night that she and two of her friends could be subpoenaed.

If convicted, Mays and Richmond could be held in a juvenile jail until they turn 21.

The Associated Press normally does not identify minors charged in juvenile court, but Mays and Richmond have been widely identified in news coverage, and their names have been used in open court.

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Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus

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